Vuelta a Espana 2021 - Stage 5 as it happened - Jerseys change hands after dramatic finale
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Updated 18/08/2021 at 17:00 GMT
Red, green and polka dots all changed hands after a late crash caused chaos ahead of a scrappy bunch sprint in Albacete, won by Jasper Philipsen. You can watch La Vuelta live and ad-free on the Eurosport app and Eurosport.co.uk. Download the Eurosport app for iOS and Android now. You can also watch the most comprehensive live & ad-free racing on GCN+.
Vuelta a España: Stage 5 Highlights: Massive crash and a thrilling sprint finish
Stage 5 report: Philipsen doubles up as Taaramae crashes out of red
Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen roared back into the green jersey with his second win of the race after beating Fabio Jakobsen in a chaotic bunch sprint finale to Stage 5 of La Vuelta. Frenchman Kenny Elissonde is the new race leader after Estonia’s Rein Taaramae was involved in a pile-up inside the final 12km of an otherwise uneventful day.
Elissonde in red, Philipsen back in green
The crash for Rein Taaramae means Kenny Elissonde is the new race leader, the Frenchman swapping polka dots for the red jersey with the Estonian. And there's more musical chairs with Jasper Philipsen taking back the green jersey from yesterday's winner Fabio Jakobsen: the Belgian leads by just one point so that intermediate sprint proved vital.
Today's top five
1. Jasper Philipsen
2. Fabio Jakobsen
3. Alberto Dainese
4. Juan Sebastian Molano
5. Piet Allegaert
2. Fabio Jakobsen
3. Alberto Dainese
4. Juan Sebastian Molano
5. Piet Allegaert
Frenchman Arnaud Demare could only take 10th place after losing his leadout train... Jakobsen was never really in the mix for the win after being boxed in by the barriers and needing to fight back from distance.
Victory for Jasper Philipsen!
Alpecin-Fenix had the numbers and the Belgian was able to finish it off after what was a very, very scrappy bunch sprint with lots of barging and boxing in.
Final kilometre
It's UAE, Alpecin and Deceuninck who front the pack as they go under the flamme rouge ahead of the final 90-degree turn onto the home straight... Michael Matthews is also there for BikeExchange but Groupama have work to do.
3km: Elissonde to be the new leader?
Kenny Elissonde avoided the spill and so he should be the red jersey tonight. Astana, Bora, Alpecin and Ineos are all on the front - and the wind has returned. Deceuninck are preparing the way for Jakobsen as well. UAE paving the way for Molano, too.
5km: Taaramae to lose red?
The Estonian is riding in a group which is 1:25 down on the peloton and so it looks like he will lose the red jersey today. Bardet is now over five minutes back. The race is back on for the main pack following an initial easing and regrouping following the pile-up. Ineos and Alpecin have been going heavy on the pacing.
7km: Bardet battered and bruised
Terrible luck for Romain Bardet - the Frenchman was involved and he's in a bad way. Back on his bike, but his jersey is torn, his body bleeding, and he's way off the back. He was only 1:16 down in 14th place on GC so that's a shame for the Team DSM leader.
10km: Pace eases up after crash
There's a go-slow after that huge pile-up and we're still taking stock with who's been affected. Mikel Nieve, the veteran Spanish climber at BikeExchange, looks to be in a bad way - perhaps a broken collarbone. Taaramae is on his way again but he took a tumble. His Wanty teammate Kevin Van Melsen went down hard and his bike frame is broken in two. Mads Wurtz, the Danish champion, took a knock.
12km: Huge crash!
There's a massive crash near the front of the peloton and that has caused havoc there. So many have been caught out - most notably the red jersey of Rein Taaramae for the second day in a row. Ineos Grenadiers look to have avoided that and most of their riders seem to be in a leading pack of around 40 riders.
15km: Lazkano caught
The last man standing from the breakaway has been swept up by the peloton, which is now in spring/protect GC riders mode with teams forming en masse on the front and keeping the pressure high.
18km: Astana drama!
Luis Leon Sanchez and Aleksandr Vlasov open up a small gap on the front after an opportunistic dig. It's Ineos who close the gap before a returning EF team swamp to the front to put out the fires that earlier burned their collective fingertips.
20km: QuickStep push on!
There's a dig from one of the Deceuninck boys and that sparks a reaction from Groupama and Alpecin - and all of a sudden things have caught alight. Jumbo are quick to react, as are Ineos, but EF Education-Nippo were caught napping there.
22km: And then there was one
Xabier Azparren had popped and so it's just Oier Lazkano, the fastest finisher of the initial three-man move, who is out ahead. He's got a bandage on his right arm from an earlier crash in the race, and he surely knows he has no chance of survival today, but he'll keep plugging away to win the day's combativity award and get some screen time for his Caja Rural team. His gap is 1:40.
25km: Well, that didn't last long...
Ineos Grenadiers knocked it off once Egan Bernal had a word with Dylan van Baarle, who was pushing things on the front - and now it seems like no one's interested. That may have something to do with the fact that there isn't actually much wind. Sanchez has been caught but our remaining two leaders have 1:28 on the pack.
30km: Ineos, Jumbo and Movistar on the front
The peloton has reached Barrax where we have that turn ahead of the run into the finish at Albacete. The pace is up amid mounting concern that the winds could play a role in this final half hour of racing today...
34km: First escapee dropped
Pelayo Sanchez has had enough: the Burgos-BH rider is dropped by his fellow Spaniards Oier Lazkano and Xabier Azparren, who continue on their way without him. The duo still has two minutes over the peloton but there's no chance they're going the distance today.
James Knox, meanwhile, seems to be having some beef with the race director Javier Guillen - the British rider from Deceuninck-QuickStep is arguing alongside the car off the back of the peloton but it's not clear why.
40km: Tensions rise
There's definitely a bit more wind in the air but the flashpoint will come with 31km remaining at the town of Barrax where the road takes another 90-degree turn to the east. It's here where there could be a crosswind and where the peloton may blow apart. Perhaps wishful thinking after the previous three hours of inaction, but one can at least live in hope...
Sean Kelly's praise for Fabio Jakobsen
"When we think back to the big crash last year in Poland, it was just frightening to see and not nice to see," Kelly told Eurosport about Fabio Jakobsen's return to winning ways after fighting back from life-threatening injuries. "We were wondering if he would ever come back to being normal again, not even to ride his bike. It's amazing the recovery that he has had so quickly. The way he has come back from those injuries, and to be at this level again at this time, it's just unbelievable."
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'It's amazing' - Kelly pays tribute to 'unbelievable' Jakobsen recovery from crash
45km: Echelons alert
With the road now heading due south after a 90-degree kink - and the threat of crosswinds apparent - some of the big teams have edged towards the front of the peloton in anticipation of potential fireworks. Most notably Jumbo-Visma, Movistar, Ineos Grenadiers and EF Education-Nippo.
50km: Lazkano wins intermediate sprint, Jakobsen sits back
Oier Lazkano is first of the three escapees to cross the line in La Roda to take the spoils for his Caja Rural team. When the peloton comes through it's Jasper Philipsen who pips Arnaud Demare for the remaining points, the Belgian adding 13 to his tally and the Frenchman taking 10. That puts Philipsen up to 81pts which is 19pts behind the green jersey Fabio Jakobsen who, like yesterday, chose not to contest the intermediate sprint. The Dutchman probably learned from his mistake on Sunday when he won the bonus sprint but came second at the finish.
60km: Intermediate sprint approaching
The sprint at La Roda will be a dress rehearsal for the final sprint today - and there will be green jersey points up for grabs for the first five riders. Fabio Jakobsen currently leads the points classification on 100pts with Jasper Philipsen on 68pts, Alex Aranburu on 50pts and Michael Matthews on 43pts. The gap for the leading trio, meanwhile, has stabilised at 2:45 - the peloton clearly doesn't want to make the connection too early.
72km: Gap tumbling
The peloton averaged 49kph for a 10km stretch a little while back and that explains how the advantage of the leading trio has come down to 2:30. We have the intermediate sprint coming up in about 20km and that could be followed by the crosswind section where the race could be blown apart. There's also the curveball of possible thunderstorms: it's very hazy and the heavens could indeed open.
Today's finish: straight and flat
The home straight in Albacete is flat and 850m long while there may be a slight headwind. That would put Arnaud Demare, Jasper Philipsen and Fabio Jakobsen up there as favourites - which explains why their teams are chipping in on the front of the pack. Here's an image from today's finish...
95km: Azparren, again
This is the second day in this Vuelta that Xabier Azparren has been in the break after his ride in Sunday's second stage. It also appears that the 22-year-old has cut off the flowing locks that adorn his profile picture on ProCyclingStats. The gap, meanwhile, has come down to four minutes. That's primarily because Groupama-FDJ, Alpecin-Fenix and Deceuninck-QuickStep have all sent a man to the front, while Astana are also in the mix.
115km: Gap comes down a touch
We finally have live TV pictures and, with it, confirmation that today's stage is going to be equally tough for riders, commentators and live bloggers alike...
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'You could play snooker on this!' - Aerial footage shows how flat 'pancake' Stage 5 is at Vuelta
130km: Seven minutes for trio
The gap continues to grow for our Spanish trio - all of whom are Vuelta debutants. In fact, our friends at ProCyclingStats inform us that 58 out of the 184 riders starting the race are Vuelta debutants - that's a whopping 32% so just under a third of the entire peloton.
Given the terrain and the type of stage today, I'm guessing we'll have many more stats like that to bring you to help punctuate the monotony.
140km: Bouhanni the last winner in Albacete
The Vuelta has visited Albacete on five occasions since the new millennium with the winners being Oscar Freire (2000), Robbie Hunter (2001), Alessandro Petacchi (2003), Isidro Nozal (2003) and Nacer Bouhanni (2014). They were all sprint wins with the exception of Nozal's victory, which came in a 53km TT the day after Italy's Petacchi won a sprint stage to the 'Windy City'. With the gap of today's breakaway back above six minutes, you can watch world champion Freire's victory in the heavily pixellated tweet below...
150km: Gap stabilises at five minutes
Taaramae's Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert team have come to the front to keep a lid on things - and while they're not leading any chase as such, they have managed to reduce the gap from 5:35 to around five minutes ahead of a little uphill rise, the only real gradient test of the day, albeit one that is very much uncategorised.
Quick-Step's emotional rollercoaster continues
After Mark Cavendish’s sensational Tour de France comeback in July the tears of joy kept flowing for Deceuninck-QuickStep as Fabio Jakobsen took a stirring Stage 4 win in La Vuelta one year after almost losing his life in the Tour de Pologne.
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Fabio Jakobsen and Mark Cavendish
Image credit: Getty Images
Back in April, Fabio Jakobsen was part of the Deceuninck-QuickStep team that helped Mark Cavendish get back to winning ways in the Tour of Turkey. Without a win in over three years, the Manx Missile won three stages on the bounce, then added a fourth on the last day to pull the curtain down on a dark period of his career blotted by bouts of depression as he fought the debilitating Epstein Barr virus.
As the seeds of Cavendish’s remarkable return to the Tour de France were sown in Turkey, Jakobsen’s highest finish in his own first race for eight months was 39th place. Not that it mattered. The race offered the 24-year-old Dutchman the opportunity to gradually reintegrate himself into the peloton as part of a winning team and the chance to draw a line under a far bleaker place: a medically induced coma following a high-speed crash that saw Jakobsen fighting for his life. Read on below...
160km: Youth and inexperience in leading trio
All three of today's breakaway are riding their debut Grand Tours. Sanchez and Lazkano are both 21 while Azparren is the relative elder statesman at 22. Meanwhile, only one of them, Caja Rural's Lazkano, has a pro win to his name - Stage 3 in last year's Volta a Portugal, when he soloed to glory and held off the returning peloton. That said, Lazkano is yet to break into the top 10 in any race this season, while his two companions have both peaked with a ninth place: in the Stage 4 ITT in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana for the long-haired Euskaltel rider Azparren, and in Stage 9 of the Arctic Race of Norway earlier this month for Sanchez.
170km: Gap pushing four minutes
None of these three escapees is a threat on GC with Sanchez the best placed rider over 10 minutes down on Taaramae. As such, the Estonian's Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert team may not ride as forcibly on the front as they did yesterday and instead let the teams of the sprinters do the dirty work. The gap quickly grows to 3:50 as the mercury pushes 30 degrees Celsius on those flat and exposed Spanish planes.
180km: Three-man break on the move
And once again, like yesterday, it's an all-Spanish affair. Pelayo Sanchez (Burgos-BH), Oier Laskano (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi) are the men who have drawn the short straw as the Spanish wildcard teams look to continue getting some screen time during this opening week of the race.
184.4km to go: Stage 4 under way
The riders roll out of Tarancon and through the neutral zone - and the fifth stage is under way. It's a second day in red for the Stage 3 winner Rein Taaramae, who retained his lead in the GC despite hitting the deck with 2km remaining yesterday. The Estonian also leads the KOM standings but it's Frenchman Kenny Elissonde in polka dots for a second day, while Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen is the man in green following his stage win, and Colombia's Egan Bernal in white.
Stage 4: Flat but potentially windy
On paper, the 184km stage from Tarancon to Albacete looks a bit of a snoozefest - what with not a single categorised climb and pretty much pan-flat roads from start to finish. But the city of Albacete, set in the middle of the Castille plains south-east of Madrid and the hub of Spain's knife-making industry, is known as the 'Windy City' and so the peloton will be on red alert for stabbing crosswinds.
How can I watch the Vuelta?
You can watch the race unfold on eurosport.co.uk and the Eurosport app and Eurosport 1 across the three weeks.
An ad-free livestream of the Vuelta a Espana 2021 will run throughout the event on the Eurosport app and Eurosport.co.uk. You can download the Eurosport app for iOS and Android now.
You can also watch the most comprehensive live & ad-free racing on GCN+. Go deeper and get interactive with live polls & quizzes, plus rider profiles, race updates, results & more – plus stream exclusive cycling documentaries. Watch it all with GCN+ on any device.
Stage 4 Recap - Jakobsen in green after emotional Stage 4 win in thrilling uphill sprint
A year from waking up from a medically induced coma after his horrific crash on the 2020 Tour de Pologne, Fabio Jakobsen got back to winning ways at La Vuelta on Tuesday. The Dutchman from Deceuninck-QuickStep powered past France’s Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) on a ramped finale to Stage 4 at Molina de Aragon to take his third win of the season while prising the green jersey from the shoulders of Stage 2 winner Jasper Philipsen.
Belgium’s Philipsen (UAE Team Emirates) found himself boxed in during a hectic finale to the 164km stage through the Castilla-La Mancha region of central Spain, the man in green only managing ninth place. Denmark’s Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) completed the top three ahead of Italy’s Alberto Dainese (Team DSM) and Australia’s Michael Matthews (EF Education-Nippo).
Read the full report here.
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You can watch La Vuelta live and ad-free on the Eurosport app and Eurosport.co.uk. Download the Eurosport app for iOS and Android now. You can also watch the most comprehensive live & ad-free racing on GCN+. Go deeper and get interactive with live polls & quizzes, plus rider profiles, race updates, results & more – plus stream exclusive cycling documentaries.
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